Al-Farabi Kazakh University ranks first in the country for interdisciplinary studies, according to new national ranking

ASTANA – The Almaty-based Al-Farabi Kazakh National University was ranked first among Kazakh interdisciplinary universities followed by Lev Gumilyov Eurasian National University in Astana and Evnei Buketov Karaganda State University, according to a national ranking of universities published June 15 by Kazakh Independent Agency for Quality Assurance in Education.

Photo credit: kaznu.kz.

The ranking lists the best universities of Kazakhstan across six areas, which include interdisciplinary universities, technical, humanities, medicine, art and pedagogics.

Kazakh-British Technical University topped the ranking in technical majors followed by Kanysh Satbayev Kazakh National Research Technical University in Almaty and Karaganda State Technical University.

Karaganda Economic University lead Kazakh universities in humanities and economics along with Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research (KIMEP) and Almaty Management University.

Sanzhar Asfendiyarov Kazakh National Medicine University, one of the oldest in Kazakhstan and founded in 1930, is the country’s top medicine university, according to the agency ranking.

Kazakh National University of Arts, commonly known as Shabyt for the building that houses it, was ranked first in arts and Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University founded in 1928 was ranked first in pedagogics.

The agency has published the ranking since 2008 using the Berlin principles on ranking higher education institutions adopted at the second meeting of the International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) in Berlin in May 2006. IREG was founded in 2004 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s European Centre for Higher Education (UNESCO-CEPES) and the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington, D.C.

The agency noted national ranking weighs in quality of education, quality of research and science, competitiveness of faculty staff and graduates in labour market.

The general assessment of academic achievements employs six indicators. These include the number of students (10 percent), academic performance of students and number of education programmes (14 percent), faculty staff (12 percent), research, science and innovation activities (15 percent), international cooperation (12 percent), information provision (7 percent).

The set of principles focuses on transparency in methodology used to compile the ranking, selection of indicators based on their validity and relevance and use of credible and audited data collected with “proper procedures for scientific data collection,” among other requirements.

The agency collects data from the universities based on the documents they submit, independent sources, such as SCOPUS, Clarivate Analitics, and Russian Science Citation Index.

The analysis is also conducted based on the results of tests evaluating academic achievements of university students, the number of graduates who studied with Bolashak scholarship programme and the number of students receiving educational grants.

The agency noted academic performance of universities reflects 70 percent of the ranking results, while another 30 percent account for university reputation based on evaluations from Kazakh and foreign education experts (15 percent) and employers (15 percent).

A social logical survey included 800 questionnaires and 200 were received from Kazakh experts as well as experts from Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia. The respondents were contacted by e-mail.

In building a better picture of a university reputation among employers, they were divided in two representative groups based on the methodology – national and local administrative bodies as well as companies.

The agency sent 825 questionaries’ to the first group and received 400 and sent 1,800 to companies and received 227 of them.